BEIJING, July 8, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — On July 8th, 2024, CKGSB Finance Professor Mei Jianping published the latest MM Chinese Art Indices , evidencing changes in the popularity of the Chinese art market by analyzing repeated auction sales. Covering prices, sentiment, liquidity and popularity, the new set of figures takes our understanding of the Chinese art market prices up to Spring 2024.
The Indices cover artworks by over 400 Chinese artists from Greater China and overseas that have been repeatedly put up for auction between 1980-2024. The 2024 Spring Auction Index shows the Chinese art market remains in a period of consolidation, with a somewhat slowing downward trend. Chinese art continues to hold long-term investment value. As a physical asset, it is anti-inflationary in a world flush with liquidity. Therefore, with the development of China’s economy and the growth of worldwide Chinese wealth, Chinese art is expected to continue to receive interest from collectors and investors.
The MM Chinese Art Price Index rose from 1 to 9.5 between 2001-2023, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.3%. The Index shows that in Spring 2024, auction prices fell 6.2%, continuing a downward trend after the pandemic, but at a slower rate. Due to the pandemic’s impact and a transitioning Chinese economy, the Chinese art market has entered a period of adjustment since reaching its peak in 2020, and will take some time to recover.
In Spring 2024, the MM Chinese Ink Painting Index rebounded strongly, breaking the downward trend since 2012, returning to its 2016 level and outperforming the MM Chinese Oil Painting Index. According to the MM Chinese Art Sentiment Index, in Spring 2024, collectors’ confidence recovered slightly, yet market sentiment remained relatively sluggish. T he MM Chinese Art Liquidity Index shows the highest liquidity artists in the last 25 years were Wu Guanzhong, Zao Wou-Ki and Lin Fengmian. In addition to the Individual Artist Price Index of Zao Wou-Ki, the indices launched a price index of Wu Guanzhong.
The Indices—co-developed by Mei Jianping, Michael Moses and Jiang Guolin—are the result of the popularity of Chinese art, rising to comprise 20% of the global art market. The indices offer systematic and comparable data to evaluate purchase decisions on Chinese art, a black box to many in the art investment world.
